Abstract
A reactor device includes a sealed vessel defining an interior, a fuel material within the interior of the vessel, and a heating element proximal the vessel. The fuel material may be a solid including nickel and hydrogen. The sealed vessel may be sealed against gas ingress or egress and may contain no more than a trace amount of gaseous hydrogen. The sealed vessel is heated with an input amount of energy without ingress or egress of material into or out of the sealed vessel. An output amount of thermal energy exceeding the input amount of energy is received from the sealed vessel. The fuel material has a specific energy greater than that of any chemical reaction based energy source.

On October 8th of 2014, a group of scientists and researchers from across Europe released a paper describing a month long test of Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat or Energy Catalyzer. (See PESWiki’s news chronicle of this as it unfolds.) In addition to reporting on a clearly anomalous production of heat — ~3.5 times more than the energy put into the system — this paper, completely uncensored, revealed crucial information about the composition of the fuel used in the device. The high performance of the device ruled out any known chemical source of power by many orders of magnitude. PESN posted a feature story about this paper titled, “Apocalypse: The Four Horsemen of Andrea Rossi’s E-Cat.”

Now, an additional paper has been released that provides additional analysis and even higher magnification scanning electron microscope images of the powder used in the reactor. In particular, nickel particles have been zoomed in on to reveal fine, detailed structures. These tubercles, cracks, and folds are most certainly critical to the ability of the E-Cat to produce practical quantities of power.

The article titled, “Analysis of Two Types of Nickel Powder” (source) was written in Swedish, but Google provides an adequate translation to English that seems fairly easy to read. The primary author of the paper is “Curt, Edstrom, Ralon”, and is dated January 17th, 2013.

The twenty-one-page paper provides the following introduction (translated by Google, with a few edits).

Samples obtained from Sven Kullander in December have been analyzed. The samples consisted of two bottles with approximately 1 gram in each bottle. One bottle is called “NEW” and contained the nickel powder Rossi used in the reactor, taken before any activity has occurred. The second bottle is called “OLD” and it contained powder used in one of Rossi’s reactors for about 6 months. This bottle also contained approximately 1 gram of powder.

When you look macroscopically on the samples, one can get the impression that nickel transformed by a nuclear reaction. At a more detailed level, it seems unlikely that the nickel is first converted to other elements where these then format the new structures. The only difference between the nickel powder in the new and old sample is a little “hump” in spectrum at the iron (Fig. 13 and 17 but not in Fig. 4), the signal is so weak that it is about trace amounts and may be derived from contamination of adjacent iron particles. If there is an exothermic nuclear reaction that can transform nickel isotopes or iron isotopes [they are] are unfamiliar [to us].

On the grain that contained Ni in the “old” sample measured no Cu whatsoever. The detection limit for Cu is lower than 1%, but to safely determine, the level should be about 1% Cu present. If there is some kind of unknown nuclear reaction where Cu is formed from Ni in any greater amount that is not decayed back to Ni, Cu must be embedded in the Ni grains.

Figure 9: The particles, which contained Cu in the old sample, contained 18% phosphorus, 12% oxygen and 70% copper.

A portion of this fragment can be oxidized, hence the presence of oxygen. Cu and P occur in a very common alloy used in brazing. Lod with CuP at these proportions are particularly common in plumbing jobs. Is it possible that this fragment is derived from such solder joints? The reactors constructed by Rossi seems to have consisted, among other things, of a brazed copper details.

To understand this paper, written in 2013, to the most recent paper released on Oct. 8th of 2014, you must realize that the powder tested in this older analysis was not from a different type of reactor. Certainly, the powder tested in 2013 did not come from the same model of high temperature reactor as in the 2014 analysis. Most likely, the powder came from a low temperature E-Cat reactor. Because of this, the additives or “catalysts” used in the two different powders are most likely different to some degree. However, I think it is likely that the basic nickel powder used is probably very similar. Both the old and new powder can produce vast quantities of excess heat when correctly stimulated by alternating current and heat.

A professional, high quality comparison of the analysis of the powder in both of these papers would be time consuming and require a great deal of knowledge in the field of material analysis. So in order to get the news out about the release of this paper, I will avoid going into excessive detail about every aspect of this paper. Other individuals, far more qualified than myself, will be more capable of providing such a comparison. Instead, I will post several facts and observations I have gathered from looking at the figures and reading the text of the paper.

More Fascinating Information

As mentioned in the excerpt above, in this paper, two types of powder are studied: “new” and “old.” The new powder is fuel that had never been placed in an E-Cat reactor, and the old powder is fuel that had been used for six months. In alignment with the paper released on Oct. 8th, the new powder was composed of uniform particles of about one millimeter by one millimeter. The old powder, however, had a variety of particle geometries and was of a clumpy appearance. It seems that reactions took place in the old powder that may have caused the non-uniformity.

Analysis of the new powder revealed only carbon, oxygen, and nickel to be present. It is also important to understand that this method of testing cannot detect hydrogen or Lithium – both of which were found in the Oct. 8th paper. So these elements may, or may not, be present. The sample was prepared for analysis by placing it on a piece of tape which contained the elements carbon, hydrogen, and, according to the authors, possibly oxygen. This means it is possible that some percentage of the carbon and oxygen detected in the sample may be from the tape. The old powder, however, shows a wider variety of elements present, including the elements C, O, Mg, Si, P, Ca Fe, Cu, and Ni.

Various particles of the old powder contain different percentages of these elements. The report speculates that certain of these elements may be contaminates or from material used in the soldering of the reactor. Another important fact is that the testing method only determines the composition of the particles near their surface. The different composition of the old powder from the new powder could possibly be partly due to elements present deep in the particles.

Lithium and iron are both mentioned as potential catalysts, even though lithium was not detected. In the report released on Oct. 8th, both of these elements were detected. One aspect of the Oct. 8th report that excited me were the Scanning Electron Microscope images of the various particles. The ability to actually see, in some detail, the nickel particles was very exciting, because the protrusions or tubercles were visible. In the 2013 paper, however, the images are even more detailed, more numerous, and of a much higher magnification.

The Nickel Masterpiece of Andrea Rossi

My jaw dropped, literally, when I saw the images of the nickel particles in this paper. Although images of other particles were included, the nickel particles under high magnification were beautiful. Some of them appeared to be square in shape and composed of smaller cubes. Each sub-unit was visible, and they reminded me of brick work. Other particles were even more magnificent with spike like protrusions, ribbons, folds, and cracks. One very highly magnified particle seemed to contain geometric shapes. Although I’ve seen many images on the internet of nickel particles (commonly available for sale by suppliers) Rossi’s powder seemed more intricate and varied.

The above images show nickel particles at various levels of magnification. If the E-Cat is to be replicated, these surface features will need to be reproduced. (Sterling’s Comment: I’ve not followed this as closely as others, but an obvious question to me seems to be: Were the nickel particle attributes a pre-requisite condition by some preparatory process, or are they a function of the reaction itself — not a prerequisite, but a result?) I feel this will be every bit as critical in producing excess heat as choosing other additives and applying proper magnetic or RF stimulation with alternating current. What we do not know is if Andrea Rossi custom fabricates these particles in house from raw nickel, or if he purchases carbonyl nickel from a supplier and then further modifies them.

Bob Higgins is a researcher who has produced a document titled, “Surface Processing of Carbonyl Nickel Powder for Ni-H LENR Applications.” In this document, he obtains carbonyl nickel – with surface features similar to those found in Andrea Rossi’s powder – from a supplier and further modifies it through a process of adding nano FeO3 powder. He then runs the powder through a series of processing including the application of heat, sintering, and grinding. The result are particles that look similar to those in Rossi’s powder.

Indication of anomalous heat energy production in a reactor device

An experimental investigation of possible anomalous heat production in a special type of reactor tube named E-Cat HT is carried out. The reactor tube is charged with a small amount of hydrogen loaded nickel powder plus some additives. The reaction is primarily initiated by heat from resistor coils inside the reactor tube. Measurement of the produced heat was performed with high-resolution thermal imaging cameras, recording data every second from the hot reactor tube. The measurements of electrical power input were performed with a large bandwidth three-phase power analyzer. Data were collected in two experimental runs lasting 96 and 116 hours, respectively. An anomalous heat production was indicated in both experiments. The 116-hour experiment also included a calibration of the experimental set-up without the active charge present in the E-Cat HT. In this case, no extra heat was generated beyond the expected heat from the electric input. Computed volumetric and gravimetric energy densities were found to be far above those of any known chemical source. Even by the most conservative assumptions as to the errors in the measurements, the result is still one order of magnitude greater than conventional energy.

The independent testing of The Andrea Rossi Hot Cat is now complete. On his Journal of Nuclear Physics blog, Andrea Rossi has signaled a very positive result.

“The last test was completed with the continued operation of the reactor for 120 hours (the new generation of Hot-Cat goes through two stages, carried out with an activator with resistance coupled with a kind charges that activate the E-Cat with a different charge). effect is stunning and we saw it with our tests, all this has been replicated with independent testing. Now for industrial commitments, we deliver our plants by the end of April. “

The test results should be available in short order. Now the fun begins!